Crow Wing County Fair starts out with a splash of rain

BRAINERD — The first day of the Crow Wing County Fair was greeted with rainfall Tuesday morning and afternoon, Aug. 1, leaving fairgoers to seek shelter in buildings and under tents and awnings.

Dark clouds hung overhead before the heavy rain in the early afternoon, but the sun came out periodically between bouts of rainfall.

Most animals were indoors while it was raining, but Julie and Chris Berczyk’s alpacas caught some water in their outdoor pen.

Usually when it rains, the alpacas can run back into their barn, so seeing their wet fleece is a first, Julie Berczyk said.

“I’ve never had one look like that,” she said.

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Right now, their alpacas, Honor and Jitterbug, are growing out their fleece. When it’s hot, they spray water on their legs, stomach and neck, but never their backs. Water on top of their fleece makes it harder for them to lose sweat, Berczyk said.

“Quit raining!” she called out.

Chris Berczyk set up a fan in the corner of the alpacas’ pen to help them keep cool and dry off quickly.

They usually keep a table with alpaca fleece products, like socks and hats, just outside their tent, but they had to adapt and move the table inside their tent to keep the items dry.

In all the years they’ve set up at the fair, each day from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Berczyk said it has rained twice, but they’ve never had to deal with bringing the animals inside to stay dry.

When the morning rain started to get heavy, they brought the alpacas inside the sheep and goat barn right next door, and again in the afternoon after their patch of grass flooded.

Some outdoor booths, including Indigo Alpaca, closed up shop when the grass near the walkways became too wet to walk through.

Outside the kiddie barn, youth arts building and more, people swept water away from the entrances with brooms and piled up boxes to keep the water from getting in.

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At the Pizza Hut stand, manager Josh Rinde said he stepped off the platform into ankle-deep water.

The stand has a roof, but that didn’t save the countertops from getting wet. Rinde made use of some of their napkins to wipe water off the surfaces.

Rinde said they held off on bringing in more pizza and breadsticks to the fair until the rain eased up. Their Plinko board stayed up through the rain, and they continued giving out candy to anyone who landed in the correct slot.

One little girl sang, “Rain, Rain, Go Away” when the morning rain first started.

The Oak Street Chapel Band’s afternoon performance on the Mills Free Stage was scheduled until 3 p.m., but it ended early due to the downpour.

Though an inconvenience on the first day of the fair, the rain is certainly welcome in the Brainerd lakes area. Last week, the U.S. Drought Monitor listed Crow Wing and other area counties as being in a severe drought .

Hannah Ward can be reached at [email protected] or 218-855-5851.

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